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While the books are being proofed and printed, it is time for you to decide on a marketing plan. Writing devotions is the first step to getting God’s word into the hands of the college students, but if we don’t actually get it to the students, then it won’t bear the fruit it needs to. There are lots of ideas for helping as many students as possible get copies of these devotions. Here are some helpful suggestions.
- Start by making a list of churches in your town. Find a contact within the church to talk with. If they have a pastor who focuses specifically on high school students or college students, they will be a great resource.
- Explain the project to the church contact: the devotional book will have one devotion for every school day of the student’s first year in college. The devotions are short, so they can read them quickly, but they are filled with the truth of God’s word.
- Present your marketing plan. You can choose to offer the same price for each book purchased, or you can offer incentives for quantity by offering discounts on multiple books or a free book for every so many purchased.
- Suggest ways the church could help get these books into the hands of all their graduates (or all the graduates from the local high schools if they want to use it as an outreach). One way would be for the church to purchase all the books and give as graduation gifts to their students. Another way would be to invite the congregation to contribute to this project so the entire church could have a part in sending these students off to college with love and support. Sunday school classes could pool their resources to purchase a certain number of books.
- After you talk to churches, you might want to visit the Christian clubs at the schools. Invite students to purchase books to give as gifts to their friends or classmates who don’t attend church currently. I know many students who didn’t want anything to do with God in high school that were open to the gospel during college due to the plethora of life changes they were facing. These groups could do fundraisers in order to afford to purchase books for their friends.
- Talk to Christian schools or booster clubs at Christian schools about purchasing copies for all their graduates.
- Use your social media channels to promote the book to friends and family who might want to purchase books for students in their towns and churches. Suggest they purchase copies to place in their church libraries.
- Contact your local Christian news outlet to see if they would allow you to promote the project there. You might gain more traction if you offer them content they can use first. It would be fine if you wanted to read your devotion on the radio to show them what the project is going to be like.
- Some Christian colleges have a “big sister” mentorship type program to help new students adjust to college life. Invite those organizations to purchase copies for all of their “little sisters.”
- Invite people who purchase the book to sign up for the weekly college student prayer list. Each week I will send out a brief prayer topic for the week. This way we will have hundreds of people all over the country (and world) praying for these college students. It is time we as a community stop griping about the young people of today and petition God for the hearts and souls of the next generation.
These are a few suggestions. If you have any other ideas I don’t have listed here, please share in the comments below.
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